The Pewamo-Westphalia baseball team only has three players returning with varsity experience, but that is not going to change their team goals in 2013.

The roster is quite different from last season's, which was senior heavy. Because of that, P-W coach Mark Rademacher said many of his players have talent, but lack varsity experience.

"We are young, but we have a lot of talent," he said. "We bring back five seniors, but only three of them have varsity experience. The biggest thing we are looking for out of our seniors is leadership.

Seniors Jason Wohlfert, Travis Winans and Blake Thelen will be back to captain the young group of Pirates as they look to challenge for a Central Michigan Athletic Conference championship.

Juniors Adam Wesley, Drew Bergstrom and sophomore Trey Bauer are some of the newcomers that will be looked upon to contribute right away for P-W.

Along with having raw talent, Rademacher said there were a large number of players that went out for the squad this year, and he hopes that his team can build on that enthusiasm.

Another change for the Pirates will be on the mound. Due to having a pitching staff laden with seniors in 2012, Rademacher is looking for his team to be strong in the field to help the youthful hurlers this spring.

"We have some young guys that can get the ball over the plate, but we don't have any real dominant arms," Rademacher said. "We are going to have to field the ball well behind them and not get them into bad spots."

The CMAC is expected to be tough once again with Bath, Portland St. Patrick, Potterville and Saranac being teams Rademacher said he expects to be the top competition.

"Bath and St. Pat's return a couple of the best pitchers in the league and Saranac was a young and competitive team last year, too," he said. "Potterville also has some good players, so I think the league will be fairly competitive.

"If we play as well as I know we can, I think we can be right there at the top with them."

The Pirates begin the 2013 season next week with two short road trips.

They will travel to Carson City-Crystal High School on Tuesday for a non-league doubleheader. P-W will open CMAC play on Thursday in Portland against the Shamrocks of St. Patrick's.